


Your Kisses On My Lips

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [11]
Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Food, M/M, Nightmares, Promises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After filming <i>Trance,</i> James needs some cuddling. Michael's happy to cuddle. Always.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Kisses On My Lips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluebluebonnet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebluebonnet/gifts).



> Title, opening, and closing lines from Buddy Holly’s “Rock Me, My Baby.”
> 
> The original prompt was about James being hypnotized and suggestible, but James has said in interviews that it didn’t work on him and he was sort of disappointed about that, so I thought, well, given the background of this series, why _would_ James be disappointed about that? Also, um, James has also said in interviews that he likes curry and if he was making a dish for friends he’d probably make karahi chicken; and the vodka tonic with lime is also from an interview. 
> 
> Oh, and this one takes place sometime after [Hold Me, Darling, Listen Closely To Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/806946), in this series, though it doesn't really matter for the plot.

  
_put your arms around me now_   
_and try your best to squeeze me_   
_love me, baby, you know how_   
_oh, rock me, my baby…_

  
  
James has gotten quieter. That’s the first thing Michael notices, flinging arms around him at baggage claim. Quieter, and a little pale—not just the usual Scottish-fair loveliness, but more as if James is ill, though James hasn’t said anything about that. Definitely pale, though. Like he’s gone thin everywhere, not only as far as weight but in elemental substance, some vitality absent.  
  
“I love you,” Michael tells him, and then tells him again, and holds him close. James holds him back alarmingly tight, which means two things: first, whatever’s wrong is nothing to do with Michael himself, and second, that James is indeed off-balance, to cling to him this shakily in a bustling airport.  
  
James would hold him regardless, of course. Would still kiss him and whisper, “I love you, I missed you,” in that luscious tartan-weave accent. But the kiss is both deep and fragile, as if James is trying to bury himself in Michael’s taste and scent and touch, trying to be safe inside the moment. And that voice is thinner too.  
  
“Come on,” Michael says, drawing back enough to look at him, to skim thumbtips over nutmeg-freckled cheeks, to take his bag. He’d rather scoop up James, but weary sapphire eyes would probably object to being bodily carried through the airport. “Car. Home. I made dinner for you.”  
  
“Yes. Please. You didn’t have to. Car?”  
  
“I knew you’d have luggage. Chicken tikka masala? I didn’t want to try your karahi recipe without you.”  
  
“You’d probably be even better at—”  
  
“James,” Michael says, and stops in the middle of hefting that bag into the car to put both hands on tired shoulders, inches below his. “Don’t.”  
  
And James takes a step forward, into his arms. His voice is muffled against Michael’s shoulder. “Sorry. I just— Not incredibly stable at the moment. If you couldn’t tell.”  
  
“Maybe a little.” Teasing, as he strokes a hand over disheartened dark waves of hair. It works, a bit; or at least James breathes out and stretches up to kiss his neck. Better, at least for now. A temporary bandage. “Can you tell me? After we get home?”  
  
And James nods, still shaking slightly, unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know him the way Michael does, who’s not memorized all the movements and stillnesses and exuberant grace. But he takes Michael’s hand once they’re in the car, and doesn’t let go.  
  
Back at the flat, the bookshelf-strewn walls hover protectively around them; the scent of curry-spice and heat saturates the air, and James smiles when Michael gets food out of various slow-cookers and warmers and proceeds to pile it on two plates, balancing everything on the way over, not letting him get up from the table to assist. One tired freckled hand stretches out to catch Michael’s wrist as Michael produces a vodka tonic, not too strong but with a splash of lime the way James likes it; Michael stops, looking down into blue eyes, and James tugs him closer and kisses him, apology and promise and gratitude and affection all in one.  
  
“I love you,” Michael says again, and scoots his own chair closer and forgets to eat because he’s watching James take slow bites, while the rain begins outside, steady rhythmic drumming sealing them securely away.  
  
“Love you,” James says back, and nibbles a bite of chicken, and though he doesn’t finish it all that’s okay. He’s home and eating and Michael can hold him forever.  
  
Michael collects plates and leftover curry and stores the food in the fridge; gives the plates a quick rinse and chucks them in the dishwasher, and turns around to find James leaning against the wall behind him, watching every movement, eyes warm but wistful. The sleeves of the day’s soft sweater, a grey-blue argyle knit, are shoved carelessly up, and one shoulder’s propped against the wall, negligently holding up the universe.  
  
“What,” Michael says, and comes back over to touch him, to settle a hand on his shoulder, another cupping the line of his jaw, “you like watching me wash dishes, well, all right, I can sort of wash dishes every day if you’ll look at me just like that,” and James breathes out, not quite a sob, and closes his eyes, tilting his head into Michael’s hand.  
  
Michael makes a noise, not a word, more a soft attempt at comfort, a breath, a “Shh, come here,” and pulls James into his arms, the two of them standing there in the flat’s cozy kitchen, rain pattering away kindly on the windowpane. James isn’t exactly crying, but his breathing catches on every inhale and every exhale, and Michael rubs his back through the sweater and presses kisses into his hair.  
  
“I’m not okay,” James says finally, leaning against him. “I mean—I will be, I think. But not now.”  
  
“You don’t have to be.” One more kiss, moth-wing light, over a temple. “I’m here whether or not you are.”  
  
“I know. I was—this film, and I—” A shrug, or most of one, since he’s currently being cradled in Michael’s arms. “I know you know about some of it. You were there.”  
  
Michael had indeed been there. He hadn’t intended to be, at first. They were both busy, different projects, timing just wrong; as much as he hated leaving James alone at night, he’d hoped James would at least be occupied enough with Danny Boyle and the insane shooting schedule to sleep without dreams, and James _does_ tend to have nightmares less often when actually filming, submerged in a character, not having to be himself.  
  
They’d been talking on Skype and phone and text, every single day. He’d heard that Scottish-thistle voice crack once, and then again, the following day: I’m sorry, it’s these scenes, I can’t—I’m not sleeping, please talk to me—  
  
James hadn’t asked him to come. But James had been crying, and unable to hide it, over the fracturing video call. Michael’d gone to his own director and asked for one day, just one, he’d stay later or work extra hours or take a pay cut, anything, please. He’d gotten the wave: go ahead, you’re going to be useless on our set anyway if you don’t, go take care of this and him and get your ass back here in twenty-four hours.  
  
He’d run onto James’s set in the middle of one of those torture scenes. James being held down. Fingernails being wrenched out. Not real—he knew it wasn’t real—but James was screaming, and that _was_ real, he could see it, not the character of Simon but James being terrified, traumatized, trapped in the moment.  
  
The cast and crew had been impressed by the commitment. Michael had stepped forward and put himself directly in James’s eyeline and had physically _felt_ the wave of relief, James grasping at the tether, when blue eyes’d registered his presence.  
  
He’d held those blue eyes for hours, after. James had tried to say it was ridiculous, even while sobbing in Michael’s arms: not loud tears, but ceaseless, sliding unchecked down white cheeks and too-defined freckles, leaving noiseless shining trails. James had tried to say he knew it was the role, knew that Simon was a terrible person and probably deserved it all, knew that it wasn’t _him_ , James McAvoy, being the object of torture.  
  
Michael knew all that too. Knew as well, and knows now, that James so very often awakens gasping for air, stalked by a tall faceless figure in that recurring dream, the way he’s been for years.  
  
“It’s all right,” he’d vowed, “you’ll be all right, I’m here, I love you, and this is okay, what you’re feeling, that’s _okay_ , Christ, James, I’d probably be worse off, you know, I’d be calling you every five minutes if it were me, and I’m here, no matter what…” Words. Promises. Fierce arms around shoulders. Tea and cuddling in bed, no demands, no suggestions of having sex or even hints at such. Only being there, heartbeat to heartbeat, skin to skin.  
  
James had whispered through the falling tears, “You wouldn’t, you’re stronger than this, you haven’t, I’m so sorry,” and Michael had kissed his forehead and admitted, very softly, “This is why I dropped out of doing this film with you, you know.” James had looked up, shaking everywhere, and said, “What?” and Michael’d said, “I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hurt you, I’m not stronger than you, I said it was scheduling conflicts and it wasn’t, I just couldn’t, I love you,” and James had said, tear-tracks drying in surprise, “Oh—” and then they’d held each other for a while.  
  
Twenty-four hours hadn’t been long enough. It’d been something—a life-raft, a hand-hold—but not enough. They’d known it then. They know it now.  
  
He walks James over to the sofa, step by step, and eases them both down into the cushions. All the fluff billows up supportively. The rain murmurs encouragement.  
  
James is calmer now, not trembling anymore, unprotesting and acquiescent when Michael puts a hand in all that hair and coaxes that head to rest on his shoulder. It’s the broken peace of the aftermath, the collapse after the storm; but that means they’ve made it through the tempest, and with care they’ll find dry land.  
  
He kisses the top of James’s head. Tastes dark hair like apple-green silk along his lips. “Better?”  
  
“A little.” James sighs, and relaxes even more into being held. “This, being home, with you…it’ll get better. It wasn’t just the scenes, those scenes, y’know. Or you don’t, because I didn’t tell you…”  
  
“Did something else happen? Or—I mean, obviously something sort of did, can you, you know…talk about it?” He strokes an index finger across the arch of the cheekbone within reach, collecting the barest intimation of dampness onto his own skin. James blinks, eyelashes sweeping up and down.  
  
“More something that didn’t happen… you remember we had a licensed psychiatrist, someone who also does hypnotherapy, on set for consultations…everybody wanted to try, just playing around, and of course it didn’t work on me then…”  
  
“You are sometimes a genius telepath, you know.” With another kiss. Just because.  
  
“Ha. No, but I thought…okay, of course not, not with everyone around, too many eyes…she came up to me, later. Asked whether I’d been disappointed it hadn’t worked. I didn’t think she’d noticed.”  
  
“Oh,” Michael says, getting it. “Oh. You were hoping—you’d never tried, before?” James has told him about the abortive attempts at counseling, about two psychiatrists and no answers for the recurring nightmare. Evidently, though, James had never previously tried this.  
  
“No, I hadn’t. The first one didn’t really believe in it, and the second one, well.” One more shrug, rueful, expressive. Michael knows about that one. She’d wanted to get into bed with James. To, supposedly, observe him sleeping.  
  
“Anyway…” James wraps an arm around Michael’s waist, an anchor. “…we tried again, after we finished shooting, to see if it would work, if I’d remember anything, have any answers…some people apparently just can’t be properly hypnotized. Guess who’s one of them.”  
  
Michael could answer with equal attempted flippancy, or dismiss the attempt as unimportant: he’ll love James through all the nightmares with or without known reasons behind them. What he says is, simply, “I’m sorry.”  
  
And all of James’s walls come down at last at that, a sob and a gasp of “Michael—” and a face buried in Michael’s neck; Michael holds him desperately close, not letting go, not ever. Of course James had wanted it to work; of course James had been hoping, more so than he’d ever let on, that it _would_ , this possibility he’d never considered. And it hadn’t.  
  
“I love you,” he says.  
  
James nods, sending hair scampering across Michael’s cheek. “…love you. And so'm I. Sorry.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For…I don’t know. Not having answers. Making you go through this. Crying all over you. You tried to make this a good night, and I’m thoroughly falling apart.”  
  
“I don’t mind you falling apart.” He settles James more firmly into his lap, pulling long legs onto the sofa with a possessive hand on James’s knee. “If you need to. I’ve got strong hands, I can catch you. And you’ve, y’know, done it for me.”  
  
James has. Every time Michael opens his eyes in the morning astonished all over again by his life, so hard-won after so many years, abruptly too unreal and unbelievable. James is always there to kiss him. To put broad cinnamon-sprinkled hands on his face or his shoulders or his waist and keep hold until it’s all incontrovertibly true.  
  
“I am sorry, though.” That wonderful voice quivers. Desolate gales in the Highland hills. “I don’t know. I feel—it didn’t work and I’m scared and what if this never goes away, what if—how can I ask this much of you, how can you be here making me curry when I’m going to wake you up in the middle of the night because I’m trying to scream. Again.”  
  
Michael can’t talk for a second, in the face of that overwhelming pain. And then he can. Because he has to. Because James _is_ still here, in his arms.  
  
“I want to,” he says, and the words echo with the truth of it, with every drop of his faith in them together. “I’m here because I want to be, because you let me be here and I’m honored to be, James, I am. I know what I’m getting into, with you, so if you’re trying to tell me I don’t, you’re wrong and I do and I’m choosing to stay. I love you, and that’s not a sometimes sort of thing. That's, you know, all the times. Always. In an airport or on a film set or in the middle of the night in our bed. I like making curry for you. Or with you. We’ve got a week off and I was looking up Thai-Mexican fusion cuisine, want to try, um, peanut-sauce enchiladas with me?”  
  
And James looks up, blinks, opens his mouth, closes it, and then says, “…Michael,” and is smiling through the tears.  
  
“Or ginger and garlic chicken burritos?”  
  
“Yes.” James puts his head back on Michael’s shoulder. The rain splashes down, a victory cheer. “Yes. Everything. Forever. Ginger and garlic and tortillas, and, god, I fuckin’ love you, please hold me, I love you.”  
  
“Forever,” Michael agrees, and James turns just enough to breath a kiss over Michael’s throat, lips warm against the fluttering pulse-point. Whispers, “Yes.”

 

 

  
_plant your kisses on my lips_   
_and make me bubble brightly_   
_thrill me to my fingertips_   
_well, rock me, my baby_


End file.
